


Rematch

by betweenfactandbreakfast



Series: Stranger than Earth [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Colonist/Sole Survivor Shepard, Destroy Ending, F/M, Just a short drabble, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-09 19:19:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3261353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betweenfactandbreakfast/pseuds/betweenfactandbreakfast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nina Shepard, having lost countless friends (and her right eye), faces life after the Reaper War.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rematch

**Author's Note:**

> I decided at some point that Nina would lose an eye when the Citadel was partially destroyed after the Destroy Ending. I never intended for her life to be so goddamn tragic but here we are.....

She hasn’t touched a weapon for months. Sometimes, when her eyelids are closed, she thinks everything is normal. When she opens her eyes, the world will be fine, bright, beautiful. Normal. She imagines tearing across a battlefield, heart racing, blood pumping. She imagines spotting, sighting down a target, the world slowing, instinctively knowing the exact moment to pull the trigger and watching through the scope as she hits her mark.

When she was a child, she had the brightest eyes, the sharpest eyes. She would spot a cricket in the grass or a ship in the sky, bringing her father back from his travels to Thessia or the Citadel or whatever exciting place he went to. Sometimes one of her fathers would ask her to read the fine print on labels; they were both getting old and needed glasses these days. Neither of them had eyes like hers, not even the same colour. Theirs were dark deep brown, hers blue like twin flakes of ice. Beautiful, people said.

Nina’s fingers trace the edges of the bandage, where scarring is still visible, and she wishes she was whole. She still has to wear a bandage, and when she looks at herself in the mirror she sees herself ugly. Broken. And then she feels selfish, because the empty corpses of the geth still lie scattered around Rannoch, EDI's voice is still painfully absent from the Normandy. The relays are still in disrepair, millions of people are still stranded. And she, Nina Shepard is alive, and she's mostly whole. It's Mindoir and Akuze all over again- she reprimands herself, constantly, for _feeling_.

Maybe it’s just a reminder. When she sees the sterile white bandage covering half her face she thinks of her fathers; of the 434 Marine Unit she lost on Akuze; of Kelly Chambers and Karin Chakwas; of Thane and Mordin and Legion; of EDI and Anderson. Everyone she's lost. Sha'ira once told her she was a survivor. They were wise words, and truer than she could have imagined- Nina had survived everything the universe had thrown at her, she'd walked into the mouth of hell ten times over and come out still standing every single time. Unlike everything and everyone around her.

Doctor Michel said that the piece of shrapnel that had gotten wedged in her eye only narrowly missed her brain. It was a miracle she had survived. A miracle. Nina looks at Joker’s hunched, hopeless frame, hears the silence in the cockpit which was once filled with laughter- and wonders what God could grant this kind of miracle.

Garrus tries to joke that they match now, scar for scar, wound for wound. Nina lets him. She's never been one for jokes, but his attempts calm her, keep her content. To Garrus she is the same, eye or no eye, because he's the only one it feels safe to close her eyes with. She clasps his hands, those hands that were once so ill-fitting and alien and are now familiar, comfortable. He rests his cheek against her blind side, and that comforts her. It is only with Garrus Vakarian by her side that she feels safe anymore.

Worst of all, she’s started having the nightmares again. Batarian slavers, thresher maws, reapers; she can barely tell one horror apart from the other anymore, the shapes blur and meld until all that’s left is cold fear. She wakes up screaming, the world much darker than she remembers.

One day she finally picks up her old Carnifex pistol, tries firing a few rounds into the steel sheet that Cortez and James cut into the shape of a Reaper and mounted in the armory. Her aim is wide, the shots clip the edge of the steel instead of the dead centre mark she could once land with absolute ease. Whether it's because of her lack of depth perception, or because her hand is shaking so bad, Nina truly cannot tell. Hot tears prickle at her right eye, tears borne of the shame and anger and grief which is all mixed up inside her.

She feels a hand at her left shoulder, and jumps, twisting around to see Garrus looking at her in concern.

“Sorry,” He says.

“It’s cool.” Nina replies, slamming the thermal clip from her pistol a bit too angrily. “Just warn me next time.”

He looks up at the target, riddled with holes everywhere but in the centre. His expression is the one Nina believes to be the Turian equivalent of frowning, kind of an impassive stare and mandibles twitching thing.

"Oh, yeah." She says dispassionately. "Just my shiny new 'Acquired Monocular Vision', fucking things up." She mimics Dr. Michel's French accent, trying half-heartedly to lighten the mood. 

“Here,” He says, and places a hand on her shoulder, wraps the other gently around her hand. He raises the gun, aims it, and they pull the trigger. The shot finds its mark, perfectly dead centre on the target.

Garrus makes a small noise of satisfaction. “Well, I couldn’t find a herd of rampaging klixen for our rematch, but I guess this’ll do.”

Nina covers her mouth with one hand, not trusting herself to reply. She’s Commander Shepard, for fuck’s sake, and she’s never supposed to cry. Not anymore. And yet she finds herself doing little else these days.

Recognising the signs, Garrus tosses the pistol down on a bench and wraps his arms around her. “It’s alright. It’s alright. You’re still the best damn shot in the galaxy.”

Out loud it sounds so silly, so petty that Nina has to laugh. “I love you. Asshole.”

 “I love you too, Commander Shepard.” He replies, and holds her tightly.

 "I'll get used to it." She says, unsure of who she is trying to convince. She'll get used to it. She has to.


End file.
